By 1993, India had been torn into several nations. Among the strongest was Tamil Nadu, but within Tamil Nadu were a large group of rebels, aided by the starving population. In 1993, especially, a large drought had led to a famine in spring, with people barely being able to eat. This grew to a head on May 5th, when a soldier beat a worker in a factory to death for fainting due to lack of food. After a day of unrest, several people, including government official VR Neduncheziyan, who later became head of the Coalition for Autonomy, led a mission to raid five government armories and arm the population. All five raids were captured successfully (a sixth was attempted, but failed), and many people in the area were told that the government was hiding food from them. Thus incited, the stage was s